Standard Lactate test v FaCT lactate test

[Robh]

Not sure how many people have had a standard lactate test but I know Adam has had it.

During my FaCT Level I & Level II training I saw an athlete base his FFA zone training on values from the his standard lactate test he had done prior to the camp. First few days he rode in this zone 2. When we tested him for his Lacate Balance Point he was unable to produce any more lactate for us to see a trend of clearing lactate because those first 2 days of training had depleted his glycogen.

Why would that be?

Toks had already told me once you know your zones why do you need to know anything else? Well these tests (lactate, 220-age, 1hr FT, etc..) use mathematical formula's, as human beings we are a physiologial system not a machine so we don't all fucntion the same. 70% for someone's areobic range might be 80% for someone else.

This guy had paid good money, got a nice detailed report like Ajay showing his aerobic threshold @ 2mmol & anearobic threshold @ 4mmol. But the serious problem was this test overstimated his zones by 16bpm. Because he was riding in the so called tempo range instead in of the FFA zone based on the LBP test we did again at the end of the camp. The first one had to be aborted because lactate kept dropping even after 40mins when we made the guy go all out on the turbo for a minute still no rise in lactate.

If I'm seriously depleted the next day and test my lactae values pre and post breakfast it is possible to get a post lactate value of over 4mmol. Am I doing an anaerobic workout? Of course not but the Standard Lactate test says 4mmol is an anaerobic workout. The reason it's high is because the liver is busy breaking down the food into glucose and as a byproduct lactate is produced. So diet can affect lactate values.

1) Lactate Balance Point test.

This part of the test is the 'curve' of Lactate versus Heart Rate which is plotted on the same graph as the line. This curve (unlike the traditional lactate step test shown) actually checks the progress of lactate clearance.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/1a.jpg[/img]

2) Classical Lactate test

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/5.jpg[/img]

Each lactate measurement is taken at the end of each increasing step. On this curve it is impossible to make any conclusion as to lactate threshold as is traditionally done. Often the value of 4mmol/l is taken as the lactate threshold. The 4mmol/l is a statistical average, individually the lactate threshold is somewhere between 3 and 5. In the example below this is anywhere between 170 and 183.


The graph below shows an overlap of two classic tests for the same athlete. Test A follows 3 days of a carbohydrate rich diet and test B follows three days of a carbohydrate low diet. The two tests would give dramatically different results for the lactate threshold if the statistical value of 4mmol/l were used.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/6.jpg[/img].

The graph below shows an overlap of two FACT tests for the same athlete after the same diets (the Lactate Clearance test was conducted after the initial step test as usual). The Lactate Balance Point for the two curves are essentially the same even though the curves are at a different level due to the differing diets.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/7.jpg[/img]

The Lactate Balance Point Heart Rate may change with training. It usually will increase as the athlete becomes more fit, however, fatigue can produce a drop in the LBP heart rate (see graph below three tests for same athlete). The LBP heart rate is depressed by a high intensity effort such as a race. After a hard race the LBP will be significantly lower and takes 2-3 days to recover to the pre-race level.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/8.jpg[/img]
A = pre season race
B = after completion of race
C =after 5 days recovery

[Robh]

More info from Juerg Feldman :-

Now you may understand more as well , why we over all this years try to avoid having LBP compared with "lactate threshold" , anaerobic threshold , lactate steady state, and why we introduced the term LBP for lactate balance point, as it can't be compared to all of the above, because the development of finding of the LBP is not based on the traditional thinking of aerobic and anaerobic but rather on the fact , that under increased exercise intensity lactate will show up in the blood stream as a bio-marker of some "dys-balance" in the metabolic situation in the working muscle caused by different physiological reactions like decrease in pH, move from oxygen dependent energy production to the need of ATP production over the oxygen independent energy production.
The trend in increased lactate accumulation will tell us exactly that, an increase in the dys- balance situation, and a trend in decrease of lactate will tell us exactly that, an improvement of the above dys-balance back to a more direction to a homeostasis.
This is the reason why we not believe in absolute numbers of lactate , as much more on trends, influence buy a numerous physiological reactions throughout the metabolic processes.
Lactate is an excellent bio -marker if we use it with this in mind and it can be used nicely as a information for changes in metabolic processes and with the help of other information it can be used to track changes in the metabolic situation before during and after exercises in one single workout or as a trend information over the longer term.
Our Software version with the overlap has exactly this in mind.
Performance lines can be used as short term functional information, but as well as long term structural changes if used in combination with lactate and heart rate.
The lactate trends can used as functional information over the short term not only as information on intensity and energy sources used, but as well as a window for energy storage situations.
The long term trend over month and years may help to give us some inside information on possible structural changes in the muscle fiber situation.
Besides the information we can gather in sport, there is more and more use of lactate in the field of medicine and sepsis.
The next few months and years will be very interesting in watching the development and changes in the field of coaching and training intensities.
Old traditional ideas with lactate tolerance and pushing Anaerobic threshold will have to be re-evaluated and re-defined , to use some more scientific ideas in explaining to the athletes , why we decide to do certain workouts and why not at a given time.
The difficulties are the fact, that if we have 10 athletes.
we have 10 different physiological systems.
The beauty would be to have 10 genetically close related individuals and try different ideas and see the changes caused by the ideas.
Herb and myself are in the process just now to introduce the FaCT system into the horse racing and training and here we may have the opportunity to get 10 very close genetically "clients' and can therefore much nicer study the influence and the changes with certain training ideas and intensities.
So stay tuned as we may come up with some data to compare "horses with You " ( smile.
PS some may remember a interesting info we had long time ago from a horse trainer, where some "human” researcher had not that much of interest in his suggestion. Sometimes we may be able to learn from each other more than we think.
So stay tuned to soon see one of the world's first FaCT horse test here on this forum.
By the way : Do you know what bone is missing in a horse we have but the horse not?